Two Sages
by Niry Krane
Summary: Fado and Laruto: Sages of the Earth and Wind. What really happened to them? How exactly did they die? WARNING: T for gore, death, and violence.


So: Fado and Laruto are the sages of the Earth and Wind Temples. How did they really die? Read on to find out!

**Warning:** Not for people who don't like blood and death.

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN ZELDA! However, I do own Yupi, Womu, Poerie, Ramy, and Yannika. I invented them. But Fado, Laruto, and Ganondorf (and that fat ghost dude) all belong to their respective creators. I wish I was that I had created them, but alas; twas not to be.

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**_~TEMPLE OF THE WIND~_**

Fado, Kokiri and Sage of the Wind Temple adjusted his violin and continued to pray in song, his blonde hair flopping into his eyes. His green tunic and leggings moved with him as he swayed, his hat doing little to keep his sight free of obstruction. Friction from the violin had caused a red mark to appear on his throat, but Fado refused to cease praying. Tale was told of a shadow rising from the depths of the earth, that _he_, the wicked King of Darkness, was rising again; and Fado prayed harder than ever he had before.

His bow floated over the four-stringed, blue-green instrument; the instrument that had been passed through his bloodline since the beginning of Time.

His fingers danced over the strings to create the sacred notes of the Wind God's Aria, and, suddenly, pressing too hard, Fado's fingertips split and began to bleed.

"Ouch!" Fado winced and held his fingers up to his face.

The light in the temple was bright, from tiny holes in the high-ceilinged cavern that reflected on the sand that surrounded him, and he could see clearly the cuts on his fingers.

"Dammit," he muttered, sitting down and sucking on his fingertips. _It'll take forever until I'm able to pray again. _He thought grudgingly. _But I can't play without my fingers._

Fado sat for a moment, thinking about home. His home in the Kokiri Forest, where all his friends had been left behind when he departed to acknowledge his fate as a Sage. Yupi, Womu, Poerie, Ramy, and even little Yannika; they had not even known he was gone. Fado hadn't even said farewell.

And now, here he was, praying to the Goddesses that Ganondorf, damn his soul, never crawled from the depths of Hyrule.

"Sage of the Wind Temple," a chilling voice made Fado leap to his feet, stinging fingers forgotten as those words were spoken.

There, standing by the door several meters above Fado's level, was the very man he had thought destroyed by the Hero of Time.

Ganondorf laughed at the sage's expression. "Surprised to see me? You really shouldn't be. How could that _boy_," he spat the word. "seal me? _Me_?" Ganon leapt from his ledge and landed in the sand which sprayed up around his feet, beyond the stone circle where Fado stood in the center of the engraved Triforce. "Fools," Ganon's expression of self-confidence and smug authority vanished and was replaced by a look of disgust as he approached the small sage. "Every last one of you is an idiot. I am the superior being. I rule all."

"The Hero's way stronger than you are," Fado felt his legs trembling in panic. His only weapon was his violin, but the sacred instrument could not help him here. "He sealed you in the ground."

"You only believed this lie," Ganondorf continued to approach, his yellow eyes glinting wickedly with malice. "Everyone believed his lies."

"You're the fool, Ganon," Fado backed up, bow and violin in his hands. "When the Hero returns, he's gonna stop you."

"It's been four hundred and fifty-three years since I last met the Hero!" Ganon's laugh rang out, causing a shiver to run down Fado's spine. The sage had nowhere left to run. "Even if he has been reincarnated already, he cannot stop me. I am more powerful than I was in the beginning!"

"Laugh all ya want, Ganon," Fado jeered, trying to find a way out. "But Link's-"

"_Don't speak his name_," Ganondorf hissed. "How dare you say his name before me."

"I'll say what I want," Fado retorted.

Ganondorf leapt forward too quickly for Fado to dodge him. The monstrous man's thick, black-skinned hand encircled Fado's throat, and the sage dropped his instrument in order to attempt to pry Ganon's fingers from his neck.

"You are a boy." Ganon whispered, Fado easily four or five feet above the ground in his grip. "A small, stupid child. I can make your death as painful and slow as I desire."

Fado gurgled a few intelligible words, and Ganon dropped the boy. "What did you say?"

The sage's throat constricted with a wracking cough, and he struggled to gulp air through his damaged windpipe.

"I... I said..." he coughed again before finishing. "I said... you can go to... Hell for all I... care. Link will... destroy you again as he... has done before."

_"I TOLD YOU NOT TO SAY HIS NAME!"_ Ganondorf, in a fit of uncontrollable rage, kicked Fado with all his might in the stomach. Fado flew several feet before landing on his back, pain arching through him. "Arrogant imbecile! Now die!"

Over and over again, Ganon hit the boy. Blood stained the yellow sandstone bricks from sage's broken nose and from his mouth, where he coughed it up. Fado could feel his ribs breaking, his lungs becoming crushed, and his heart slowing down. His hands and feet were broken, and he could no longer feel the left side of his battered body. Whenever Ganondorf's boot connected, agony erupted like a volcano from the spot, but Fado refused to let the tears of pain stain his face. He would not allow this monster to have that satisfaction.

Soon, it became clear the Kokiri was dying.

"Do you have anything else to say, before you die?" Ganon paused in his brutal beatings, letting Fado crack open his eyes as best he could; the eyelashes were stuck together with blood. The sage turned onto his back so he could look up into Ganondorf's shining yellow orbs.

A cheeky grin spread slowly over Fado's face as he closed his eyes again. "I can't help but find myself hopin' that Link kills ya as mercilessly as ya killed me." the sage whispered.

Ganon's fists, stained with Fado's blood, clenched as his face contorted hideously in fury.

"Then die,"

He brought his foot down on Fado's bloodied face, and after a flash of pain from the impact of his boot, it was all over.

The Sage of the Wind Temple was dead.

As his life was extinguished like a flame, the violin, witnessing the brutal death of its master, vanished in a puff of cool, sweet air, and Ganondorf scornfully turned his back on the mangled body of the boy and departed from the Temple.

And on Fado's destroyed face, the ghost of his last smile remained.

**_~TEMPLE OF THE EARTH~_**

The sweet plucking of a harp filled the circular, high-ceilinged cave of the Earth Temple. In this sacred, solitary place that was more like a prison, a lonely Zora stood by herself, with nothing but her thoughts, and her harp. She was tall, clothed in a long purple dress and a red robe, with a white scarf around her neck and golden bracelets around her upper arms, near her shoulders, and on her wrists. A golden crown sat atop her head.

Her eyes, uniquely shaped and colored a deep blue, were closed as her turquoise fingers played the harp.

Among her people, Laruto was a rare beauty, a water lily in a lake of weeds, but she had given up everything to pray for the Hero in this Temple. She had heard whispers of the birds about an inevitable Great Flood, and this frightened her to pray harder than before. Her people, the Zora, were a freshwater race. They could not survive if the seas rose, and would be forced to evolve, losing their heritage as people of the water.

Laruto played until her fingers stiffened and she could pray no more.

A deep sigh ran through her slim frame, and Laruto found herself exhausted thoroughly. It was as though she had just swam a thousand miles without rest, her tiredness was so extreme.

She leant her back against the deep purple wall on the far end of the empty cave, but sudden foresight clouded her eyes and the temple was filled with bones and blood. Specters all around her were screaming, their eyes mere bloody sockets. Spikes lined the walls so Laruto couldn't get near the edges, and she felt her own eyes fill with tears as the sight. She turned and faced the wall, one of the spike scratching her leg as she did so. She brought in her breath sharply, hand on the scratch as a tiny drop of blood showed through the fabric of her dress.

"Enjoying my little show?" the voice of the one man she hated most broke her from the nightmare, and Laruto slowly turned to face the speaker.

Ganondorf leaned nonchalantly against the door, arms crossed. He looked as terrible, imposing, and impressive as the stories said, his black armor glinting in the dim light, while his red-orange hair and yellow eyes stood out clearly in the darkness. He was easily seven or even eight feet tall.

"You should be dead, King of Evil," Laruto spat, her deep blue eyes narrowing.

"As you can see, I am very much alive, Sage of the Earth." he shrugged.

"What do you want?" Laruto feared him; she feared him as much as she feared for the extinction of her race.

"I want many things." Ganon's smile faded. "I want the Hero to sleep forever; I want Princess Zelda to surrender to me; and I want the last remaining sage to lie dead at my feet."

"Last remaining-?" Laruto's breathing increased. "Then Fado-"

"The boy is dead."

"You monster," Laruto snarled, her hand creeping to a small knife she kept hidden under her red robe, at her back. "He was only a child."

"He stood in my way. He mocked me. Anyone who dares to dishonor me deserves the same as he." Ganondorf strode towards her, but even when face-to-face, he did not attack her. Not yet.

His golden eyes bored into hers, making her shiver, but Laruto suppressed it as best she could and stared boldly back.

"It's true, you know," Ganon said softly. "what they say. You are indeed a beautiful Zora. I have not seen one like you in my time."

His hand lightly touched the side of her face, but she slapped it away and drew her knife, stabbing him in the left side too quickly for the eye to follow.

Ganon grimaced, but not in pain.

"Such fire in you. It is admirable." he sighed. "But foolish." His right hand grasped hers and broke her wrist with an earsplitting _crack_. Laruto cried out in pain. "I had hoped to kill you painlessly, but you have left me no choice." Ganon continued, withdrawing the knife from his hip.

He slashed three times at her face, the lacerations lining her cheekbones; two on one side, one on the other. Blood welled from the cuts and she ducked under his arm, clutching her broken wrist against her chest as she backed away, trying to give herself room to move.

"Try not to run, Sage," Ganon shook his head, the tiny dagger dwarfed completely in his huge hand. "You will only bring yourself more pain."

He suddenly appeared behind her, and slashed at her back. Laruto arched and bit her tongue to keep from screaming. The knife had gone very deep into her flesh, and he could feel the hot blood blossoming over her back; Ganon had narrowly missed the long, sensitive fin on her head. She continued away from him, her wrist hanging loosely at her side.

"If this were not you," Laruto snarled. "I would ask for mercy, but you will give none. So, I will die with dignity." She spat in his direction. "Kill me as painfully as you want. I will not cry out." Laruto's head was held high as she ceased backing away.

"As you wish," Ganon flew at her, breaking the bones in her upper arm with only his grasp. He cut her throat, but only deep enough to hurt, not to kill. He beat her until she lay unmoving on the stone floor, her limbs useless against his unbeatable strength. Blood trickled from a gash in her head, and from the corner of her mouth. It pooled around her legs where the bones were protruding from her flesh.

Ganon tried and tried to get her to cry, just once, but she spoke not a word.

"You are prepared to die, as you said." he stood over her, knife stained with her blood. "I can end it here, or I can drag out your agony even longer. All you have to do is cry for me."

Laruto stared coldly at him, and maintained her silence.

In his rage, Ganon knelt beside her and cut out her eyes with the knife; Laruto, even though she had promised herself she would not, screamed over and over again, the pain too much for her to hold her tongue.

"Enjoy your last moments, Sage." she heard him leave.

Laruto lay there for a long time, bleeding slowly from her empty eye sockets. But, after what seemed like hours, the deep rumble of a ghostly laugh filled her ears and she croaked.

"Who- who's there?"

She knew it was large, monstrous, whatever it was, and it laughed again.

"Your soul is mine," its voice was as deep as the ocean, and Laruto felt cold fear settle in her ruined body.

It loomed over her, she could tell, and Laruto screamed again as her arms and legs were torn from her body more slowly than she could stand.

It was too long before she finally died.

Her last thoughts were to the Hero.

_Destroy the monsters of this world, and rise up as our Savior._

Across from the Zora, the harp lay silently on the stone. Then, it was swallowed by the ground and was gone.

And Laruto's body lay, rotting, in the cavern where she had spent too many years of her life, her eyeless face staring up into the darkness.

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love it or hate it? let me know!

Personally, I always thought that Medli and Makar's ancestors had died brutally and painfully, for them to linger on like they did.

and you all know how much Niry loves her sad, tragic stories. But its ok! Laruto and Fado are at peace now that Makar and Medli recognized themselves as sages and restored power to the Master Sword. And Link killed Ganon, which is a bonus! YAYYYYYY! x3


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